Anyone who follows current educational discourse will have come across the supposed progressive vs traditionalist debate. They will also have come across its sister scrap, knowledge vs skills. They will know that the default response of many - especially those who don’t like the testy nature of these divides - is to point out that they are false dichotomies. And to add that the debates probably don’t resonate in many classrooms.

This is a valid point. However, I believe that while these rows might be slightly manufactured, they’re good for education, regardless. I like the trad vs prog construct as a prism through which to analyse both what is taught and how it is taught. I like the fact that these rows can make teachers think about their professional practice. Progs vs trads might be false, but it’s a useful proxy.

Despite my support for the dialectic, I am pleased that these disparate factions will likely be united in condemning the idea that six- and seven-year-olds are being subject to mock exams, cramming and revision sessions ahead of their key stage 1 national tests. As Helen Ward explores on pages 10-20, these practices are a result of half-truths, mismanagement, Chinese whispers and parental paranoia.

So much for the liberation that was supposed to come with the decision in 2005 to remove the test results from the accountability regime. The results might not affect school league tables, but that doesn’t stop Ofsted, academy trusts and local authorities using them to judge schools - or parents using them to rank their children. Hence the cramming.

Perhaps the only way KS1 pupils and teachers can be freed from their shackles is to get rid of the tests in Year 2 altogether. And given that accountability regime isn’t about to completely disappear, the only way to achieve this may be to (whisper it) accept the hugely controversial Reception baseline test.

Baseline is coming

Ultimately, baseline, with all its many potential flaws, is coming - whether we like it or not. Instead of battling its introduction, a unified profession would do well to press the government about limiting the data that baseline produces to be used as part of a KS2 progress measure (and no more). Because once ministers can see the baseline is being administered in schools, it will be possible to push for KS1 tests to be made non-statutory. After all, ministers have said that is what they intend. If they fail to deliver on that commitment, that would be the right moment to get angry.

The profession must also hold education secretary Damian Hinds to his word and demand a moratorium on changes to the testing and assessment regime - a pledge he made at the Association of School and College Leaders’ conference last month.

At this point, national curriculum notwithstanding, primaries might have some of the professional freedom they would require to think about what and how they teach. It’s the freedom that Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman wants them to have - and that primary teachers must surely long to have. Who knows, they might have time to take a side on the prog vs trad debate. Or to decide it’s a load of old tosh and come up with something else completely different.

If we can achieve a period of stability in which the baseline and the KS2 Sats are the only big markers in the primary accountability regime, schools will have seven years to explore their ideas free from the spectre of assessment looming constantly over their shoulder.

And if baseline doesn’t work - there are plenty who say it won’t - we will at least have a generation of kids who won’t have been turned into exam robots at the end of infant school. In any event, we would be able to finally consign the KS1 revision guides to the recycling bin, where they belong.

Ed Dorrell is head of content for Tes. He tweets @Ed_Dorrell